


Kraft

by ziyazu



Series: Werewolves and Macaroni [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 3a, Alternate Ending, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, M/M, Newly Bitten, Powdered Cheese As Feelings, Sharing a Bed, Werewolf Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziyazu/pseuds/ziyazu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles kind of feels like storms are a little too metaphorical right now. He wishes storms would tone it down a bit. He wishes storms would f*** off and die, if he’s being honest, and pretty much everything else can go with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kraft

**Author's Note:**

> A totally alternate ending to 3a. Much simplified. Much more newly-bitten Stiles.

It’s a stupid thing, really, how he gets bitten. Really, vastly, just, improbably stupid. Stiles does a lot of stupid things, but this seems like it was probably even too stupid for him.

Although, you have Kali pinning you down, about to rip your throat out, and you see if you don’t at least try to push her away, try to get a hand on her shoulder and _shove_. It hadn’t worked – that was probably a given – but he’d tried, anyway. That was something.

The fangs, though. The fangs sinking into the tense muscle of his outstretched upper forearm? Yeah. Yeah, those _had_ worked.

Before that, they’d all been trying to kill him. Well, ‘him’ being ‘anyone they could get their hands on’, really. Once Ms Blake was dead (shattered by the energy that blasted through Scott, coming from fuck knows where in his moment of True Alphaness or _whatever_ ) they didn’t give a fuck, seemingly, and just decided to take everyone out.

And, it may have been a stupid, desperate move, pushing Kali like that, but it wasn’t like Stiles had a whole team of defenders in the moment. It wasn’t like he was doing it for fun; he _was_ actually about to die. As he has learned again and again over the past year and change, being friends with werewolves is super useful in moments of extreme danger, but only if they’re not busy fighting off other extreme danger at the time.

So, yeah, Kali sinks her teeth in, growls through his flesh, the vibrations gushing blood around her mouth, making it bubble down her face as she draws back and laughs at him. It's not fun. He freezes in fear, his face twisted with pain so intense he can barely comprehend it, and then she’s off him, she’s standing over him, her face contemplative, eyes measuring, even as he tries jerkily to hold his other hand onto the wound, tries to grip it against the slippery flow, tries to– well, anything to make it not real.

Not that that would work. He doesn’t think ‘believing’ will get him out of this one.

She nods at him, though, appraisingly, as if he’s passed muster, as if he will be accepted by the Alphas or some crazy fucking shit, he doesn’t even know, because that’s right about when her chest explodes.

Everyone had forgotten about Chris. And yeah, they’ve had issues? _Major_ ones. But seriously, thank fuck for Chris, man.

(Mr Argent. Whatever. He thinks, after everything, he can probably call Allison’s Dad whatever the crap he wants now, even if Stiles is nominally on the hunter shitlist for the rest of his life, biologically speaking.)

Anyways, after all the bullets, there’s a lot of hugging.

Everyone very pointedly both looks at and doesn’t look at his arm. Scott takes it the worst, actually leaving an injured Allison to pull him tight one more time. Derek and Peter sort of just stand aside and give him werewolfy nods eerily similar to Kali’s, as though they consider him a bro now. A werebro.

What.

His Dad just rests a hard hand on his shoulder, looks him in the eye, and says, “Well, we both believe you now,” which, fuck, YOU try not crying at that, because Stiles does not even bother.

And then? Stiles goes home. What else is there to do?

Except of course, that that is a super shitty idea, because his Dad has to go back to the station and he’s alone and he sits on the couch for two seconds before standing up and beginning to freak the _fuck_ out, so he does what anyone would do and he calls Scott, but it rings and it rings and it rings and he remembers: Allison.

So he does the next best thing and calls Derek. Except: Cora.

No fucking way is he calling Peter.

Isaac picks up on the first ring.  

They sit in the Jeep in the parking lot of the shittiest gas station in town, the only one open past 2am on a Saturday night, and Stiles picks at the already-curling tape a frazzled nurse had kindly slapped on his arm before conveniently forgetting to give him any of the routine animal-bite shots she’d promised. He supposes it was just as well it was a busy night for them, what with all of the evacuations and the death and the trauma. And the storm. And everything. Fewer questions.

But yeah, he’d picked up Isaac and they’d gotten him bandaged up so at least he wouldn’t have to look at it, and they’d gotten a shit-ton of junk food and now… now they're sort of just sitting here.

It’s still wet out, but it isn’t raining anymore. The wind’s died, too, so everything has that surreal sheen you get right after a big storm at night, where lights seem too sharp and too bright and everything smells like rain-washed air and night time and slick asphalt and the earthy musk of nearby woodland, but it’s far too still after all that noise and chaos and you get creeped out by like, everything.

(Stiles kind of feels like storms are a little too metaphorical right now. He wishes storms would tone it down a bit. He wishes storms would fuck off and die, if he’s being honest, and pretty much everything else can go with them.)

He blinks, then, and wonders when he’d started to smell things so clearly. He wonders if this is the last time he’ll smell just this, simple and uncomplicated, or if it’s already complicated and he’s just in denial and pretending it’s simple and uncomplicated. Considering his arm barely hurts anymore, he figures it’s probably edging towards the latter. He tries not to be too obvious about it in front of Isaac, smelling what he’s pretending to smell extra hard, just to remember it, just to remember even a little what it had been like.

What being _human_ had been like.

Isaac, though. Isaac does _not_ know what the _fuck_ to do. There has been a lot of awkward side-eyeing, and a lot of running his fingernails nervously over the stitching of his jeans, and a lot of lip-twisting. He clearly wants to help, but.

But.

Isaac, Stiles is beginning to understand, is a taller, paler Derek without the insane muscles and the never-ending guilt and the bearded glaring. Neither of them knows how to say anything unless put on the spot, and then they usually say the wrong thing. Like right now.

“So, I guess. Awesome.”

Stiles turns to face him in the cab of the Jeep, face incredulous.

“What- WHAT? AWESOME? No, not this is not fucking AWESOME. I’m a shitting WEREWOLF, Isaac.”

“Well, yeah. But you’re not dead. And it looks like no one else is going to be, now. So.”

“So what, look on the _bright side?_ ” Isaac catches his eye and sort of just shrugs. _Yeah_.

And then Stiles fees like a huge fucking dick because Jesus, of COURSE to Isaac it’s awesome that no one else he liked has fucking died. Isaac’s entire experience of werewolfness has been people dying all around him. Fuck, that’s actually his whole life, period, werewolf or not.

He sighs.

“Okay, point, but I just. I didn’t want this. I did NOT fucking want this, alright? Peter offered, last year. I said no. I MEANT no. This was – _is_ – not okay, and I don’t want it to be okay because it’s NOT. You may have chosen this? But _I. DIDN’T_. And I have no fucking idea what I’m doing right now.”

Isaac nods almost casually, and peers at nothing through the smudged windshield. “I know. It always feels like that, actually, like you have no fucking idea what you’re doing.” He smirks, a bit sadly. “Spoiler alert?”

Stiles slams his head back against the headrest harder than he needs to, and shuts his eyes.

“Great.”

A beat. He opens his eyes.

“Look, just. Do you want some mac and cheese? I can make us some mac and cheese.” He looks at the bag of shit they’d bought. “All of this is sort of making me feel sick before we even eat it.”

Isaac eyes him suspiciously for a long moment before asking, “Kraft?”

Stiles gapes, and then makes indescribable facial expressions of outrage and disbelief at him. “Wha- of COURSE fucking Kraft, what the hell is wrong with you? THE CHEESE IS BRIGHT ENOUGH TO SAVE DROWNING PEOPLE. Why would I ever make anything else? THIS IS _AMERICA_ , ISAAC.”

And Isaac laughs, and they drive home with Stiles still ranting about how powdered neon cheese is a great gift of the Kraft God to prove his almighty love for his puny Earth minions, and being a fucking werewolf aside, it’s the first time Stiles has felt normal in _weeks_.

They make four boxes and eat all of it, along with half of a leftover low-fat lasagne, two frozen veggie burritos, some turkey bacon, and some questionable egg salad sandwiches Stiles does not remember ever having seen in his house before. Stiles doesn’t know whether to blame his appetite on stress, adrenaline, his teenage metabolism, or being a newly-minted creature of the night, but _Jesus_ is eating great.

Just, FOOD. All of the win.

They eat until they're exhausted, until they're just too far gone to fight it any longer, and then they fall asleep around dawn, freshly showered and too goddamn tired to even talk.

Stiles hadn’t asked if Isaac wanted the guest bedroom. He doesn’t know where the sheets are, and so when he gets out of the bathroom Isaac is curled up on his bed, facing the wall in borrowed clothes that are too short and too small, tight t-shirt riding up the small of his back. Stiles simply awkwardly swipes the towel over his hair - his injured arm is aching from holding the bandage above the spray - puts on some soft old boxers, and flops facedown next to him. He closes his eyes and ignores how his elbow is brushing Isaac, and also how really comforting that is right now.

Whatever. Werebros, right?

Neither of them had move for hours, the moon passing quietly overhead, for once utterly unheeded.

When they wake up the next day, it’s nearly 2pm, and other than a text from Stiles’ Dad asserting his still working, still miraculously alive and unharmed status, there has been no contact from anyone else. Presumably they’re all either busy getting their shit together or waiting patiently for Stiles to get his shit together. Either way, it’s irritating.

He sighs long and hard and rolls over, neither of them say anything much, lying next to each other, legs brushing as Isaac itches his knee with his foot. Stiles is abruptly very aware that he isn't wearing almost any clothes at all, and that somehow Isaac has lost his shirt during the night. He throws his arms up above his head and steadfastly resists doing any of the things he suddenly wants to do right now, nearly all of which would cause him to seriously re-examine major parts of his life. He figures one identity crisis at a time is probably enough.

When they finally lug themselves down the stairs and contemplate the disaster of the kitchen, Stiles realises that there’s no cereal in the house (because Stiles lives there, and he eats cereal like it’s going out of style, because CEREAL), but Isaac looks hopefully at the last box of macaroni sitting on the counter, and Stiles shrugs.

Why not?

When the pot of macaroni boils over for the third time, though, the loose, disconnected tape from his bandage sticks to the pot handle, and Stiles irritatedly rips it off, angry and hungry and tired and annoyed and – then he freezes.

Clear skin. Like nothing had ever happened.  Ironic, that.

Isaac appears silently beside him in an instant, a trick he is _so_ going to have to learn, his hand smoothing over the spot, humming under his breath a bit as his fingertips trail over the veins. Stiles furrows his brow at that, at the weirdly familiar way it feels, but he doesn’t pull away. Isaac’s fingers are warm. Soft. They're drawing circles. He lets his eyelids slip closed.

He only opens them when Isaac stops and draws back, seeming to think better of basically fondling Stiles’ arm, but he doesn’t move away either. Instead he runs his fingers along Stiles’ ears, through the short hairs by his cheek and along his neck. Stiles starts, jerking slightly, but despite what his hammering heart is telling him, it’s a different kind of touch, he can tell right away. He can feel blue eyes searching, searching for black blood, and he suddenly has a moment of panic, terrified that he’s Jackson, that he’s _Gerard_ –

“All clear. I think you’re good.” Isaac’s voice cuts through the whirl in his brain, and he blinks, knowing he is, knowing he’s fine.

Well. For particularly wolfy value of ‘fine’, anyways.

He sniffs, and Isaac shuffles his feet, uneasy. “Beats being a lizard-thing,” he offers, and Stiles nods, leaning back into Isaac for a beat.

After that, though, the moment is gone. The pot boils over again, Stiles yelps in anguish as a wave of pasta hits the stovetop, and Isaac scrambles for the dishtowels, eyes wide and alarmed. It’s their last box. They don’t want to ruin it by being emotional morons.

By the time they’re both leaning over the counter, eating out of the pot with spoons, he’s gotten a text from Derek, and one from Lydia; updates from everyone, in fact. He hardly even notices when Isaac leans over his shoulder to read along, chest against his back, hand solid and comforting on his arm, trailing down to sit over the place he was bitten again, stroking lightly this time, not only circles but loops and twirls.

After a minute Stiles looks at Isaac’s fingers, then, unseeingly, back at his phone. He inhales, long and full, and thinks, he could do worse than someone who smells like neon cheese.

Behind him, Isaac licks his spoon, and Stiles smiles.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Now with bonus sequel! :D


End file.
